Suffolk brothers' idea helps troops in battle

David Barton, left, 27-year-old president of EchoStorm Inc., and his brother Jason Barton, 33, have developed a video-delivery system used by soldiers in Iraq. Both are Chesapeake natives. (Mort Fryman/The Virginian-Pilot)

By jon w. Glass
The Virginian-Pilot

SUFFOLK — From a cramped corner office in a business park here, two young entrepreneurs are building a business on high-tech ideas that once were the realm of Hollywood and science-fiction writers.

Brothers David and Jason Barton and their startup company, EchoStorm, are helping the U.S. military develop a new way to fight wars. Along the way, they also aim to change how the entertainment industry, the medical field and the education profession do business.

The brothers grew up in the Western Branch area of Chesapeake and went to work for defense contractors right out of high school. They have become pioneers in video and data distribution, a field full of potential and profit, where many companies are scrambling to get products to market.

But the Bartons think they have an edge.

They have created an Internet-based information service that delivers full-motion video over secure, passcode-protected networks. The images – compressed and converted into a standard digital format for easy use – are high-definition quality. Video can be viewed in near real-time as it is being shot or pulled from a searchable, archived library.

With the click of a computer mouse, users at different locations around the world can simultaneously view video as it is being shot, whether they’re using a laptop in an Iraqi desert, a handheld device in Suffolk or a desktop computer at the Pentagon.

Since the brothers founded EchoStorm in 2003, the company’s revenue has grown exponentially. An initial $200,000 contract with the Joint Forces Command in Suffolk, awarded to test the company ’s video-delivery concept, has expanded to more than $7 million.

Up until now, the brothers have operated mostly in “stealth,” partly because much of the government work they’ve been doing is classified. But they plan to introduce a commercial version of their product, called adLib, by early next year and seem eager for exposure.

As they move into the marketplace and tap additional customers, they anticipate EchoStorm’s revenue will exceed $50 million next year.

In late September, the company announced plans for a $4 million expansion, including moving to larger headquarters at the new Bridgeway Technology Center III, closer to Joint Forces. Over the next year, they expect to add 100 computer engineering and software-related jobs to the payroll, triple the number EchoStorm now employs.

EchoStorm has two patents pending on software applications of its video services technology, with six more in the works. One of the pending patents would allow advertisers to update and change advertisements on video products distributed to home users over the Web.

“That’s the one that’s hopefully going to allow me to retire someday,” said Jason, the company’s 33-year-old senior vice president. David, EchoS torm’s president, is 27.

The Bartons’ work with Joint Forces Command began as an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration, part of a larger ongoing Department of Defense effort to improve the fighting capability of troops in the field.

The military was searching for ways to get near real-time data from airborne surveillance vehicles to soldiers using Web-based technology. Around the same time, the brothers – working separately on a similar idea – wrote a “white paper” on the subject. They posted it on a Web site and dropped it into the hands of friends and local military and industry contacts.

“From there it kind of grew legs,” David said. “This was our night and weekend thing until we were comfortable we could support our first customer.”

The video-delivery technology that grew out of Echo-

S torm’s collaboration with government researchers is known as Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance Information Service, or ISRIS.

Before ISRIS, David said, the military delivered video much like a cable company, using cable lines, TV sets and video recorders. It lacked Internet capability, was expensive and unavailable to frontline soldiers.

Jay Sculley, an assistant secretary of the Army for r esearch and d evelopment during the Reagan and first Bush administrations, said EchoStorm’s work is breaking new ground.

Sculley, after learning of the Bartons’ work through a mutual acquaintance, has since done paid consulting work for EchoStorm, using his industry and government relationships to help open doors for the brothers. Sculley is now director of science and technology for Fairfax-based Horne International Inc., a government services contractor.

“I’ve been in the business of looking at technology for most of the last 25 years, and it’s clearly remarkable and noteworthy,” Sculley said of ISRIS. “It’s not only good for intelligence gathering and situational awareness, but it’s such good quality video it can be used for exploitation” – such as going after Iraqi insurgents.

A year ago, EchoStorm installed the ISRIS service in a ground station in Baghdad. Since then, the system has delivered video shot from cameras mounted on Predator unmanned aerial vehicles.

EchoStorm also installed ISRIS at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. Base personnel there use the video service while flying Predator missions in Iraq, watching video beamed from the drones via satellite.

Operators at Nellis can click on a computerized military map of Iraq to watch live video. EchoStorm’s software marks the video stream by longitude and latitude coordinates, allowing viewers to retrieve and compare video shot months earlier to detect changing landscapes.

The video service is one of the tools the military is using to combat roadside bombs – the deadly i mprovised e xplosive d evices.

The military plans to expand the use of ISRIS in Iraq during the next year and bring it to Afghanistan, said Kaye Darone, the Joint Forces Command’s government lead on ISRIS.

“It’s an unusual way of warfighting, but it’s a perfect example of how the 'netcentricity’ aspect of what we’re doing with ISRIS video fits into a new way of warfighting,” Darone said. “It’s brand new, never been done before.”

EchoStorm’s system uses off-the-shelf Apple Computer servers and memory, and Apple’s QuickTime video-streaming software.

The end result: All a soldier needs to run the system is a Web browser and Java software that allows different kinds of computer systems and devices to communicate.

“The guy being shot at on the front lines who needs video doesn’t have time to download software or plug in things,” Jason said.

The Barton brothers skipped college, relying on an inherited aptitude for science and tinkering from their father, Ray Barton. The elder Barton spent more than 20 years at General Electric and now works in an engineering position at Joint Forces Command in Suffolk.

David has developed an expertise in information technology security – protecting computers from hackers – that he said proved invaluable in the secretive world of military intelligence.

Jason’s specialty is video technology. In late 2000, he moved to California to cash in on the Silicon Valley dot-com boom, arriving just months before the crash.

During a four-month period, he worked for a half-dozen dot-com startups that went bust. What he learned helped when it came time to start his own company , he said.

“In Hampton Roads, I never knew anyone entrepreneurial, and I got the chance to see a lot of companies go cradle to grave,” Jason said. “I got to see venture capital work, and how an idea got funded and went to an engineered product. I got an education on a lot of things not to do.”

While in California, Jason landed a job with Lucasfilm working on “Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.” He spent time at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch.

He hopes that experience will help EchoStorm market its adLib software to Hollywood as a new Web-based way to distribute movies to consumers.

The Bartons are enthusiastic about adLib’s potential. Besides revolutionizing Hollywood, they said, it could be used to transmit medical data securely and open up new opportunities for long-distance learning.

At EchoStorm’s office in Suffolk, the Bartons adopted some of the West Coast corporate culture. A refrigerator in a small corner kitchen is packed with frozen pizzas, soft drinks and yog urt, while shelves are stocked with crackers, peanuts and other goodies – “one of the perks for working with EchoStorm,” David said.

Cubicles are passe; instead, desks are pushed together to encourage collaboration. Employees wear T-shirts, jeans and sandals, and change into slacks and a polo shirt with the company logo if they have to meet with a customer.

The Bartons are having fun. Hoping to win an Army contract, the Bartons bought a Hummer H-1 to show how their video service could be installed in ground vehicles to aid frontline troops. They flew to Texas to pick it up and drove it back to Suffolk.

“Can you believe, here we are buying Hummers to get work,” Jason said. “It’s a lot of fun to drive.”